Heavy things

I had lunch with my very first roommate from college today. I see her maybe 4 times a year still and we almost always meander into some heavy topics. This time, it happened to be a relationship issue that has been haunting her lately. It's nice to have these conversations, but it leaves me feeling contemplative and slightly emo. I am wallowing in some semi-depressing movies, which is either helping or making it worse, I'm not sure. Anyway, some important points from either conversations or movies today that I need to get off my chest:

1. Sometimes you have to do things that you don't really want to do because someone else is counting on you and/or you know it would make them happy. It's not always about doing the things you love, it's about doing things with or for the ones you love and showing your support without always being asked.

2. Don't make promises you can't or don't intend to keep. I think not following through with them is more disappointing than not actually making them in the first place.

3. There's no point in being with someone that you constantly want to change, but everyone could use some improvement once in a while. positive change=growth. Of course, you have to know their limits as well as your own.

4. Never be fake or lie in order to make other people like you or to avoid an important argument. It's not worth it. For example, if I find out later that I didn't get the whole truth from someone (and I think I usually figure it out, even though I may not always let on), it is so much worse than just hearing the truth the first time--even if it's something I may not want to hear. I hold honesty and authenticity in very high regard and I don't take kindly to bulls**t. Um, you shouldn't, either.

5. Bottom line: In relationships, women just want to know men actually care and actually appreciate them. (It's the principle behind most arguments.) That is expressed and received in different forms for different people, but figuring that out is essential to a good relationship. It's not all that complicated, I don't think. Actually, it reminds me of this article.

6. Closure is essential to moving on with anything in life. You may never get (or want) that closure from the source of the pain, so it's important to find that within yourself. We all have parts of our lives--days, months, years--that we would rather forget, but those are the things that make us who we are. Forgetting those parts would not do them proper justice, but learning from them would.

I guess I'll close with some quotes from Garden State, just because I like them and as I said, I'm feeling emo:
"Andrew: You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of a sudden even though you have some place where you put your shit, that idea of home is gone.
Sam: I still feel at home in my house.
Andrew: You'll see one day when you move out, it just sort of happens one day and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I don't know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place." (I think home is--should be--the place where you feel safe. It's not necessarily a physical "place" at all.)

And finally: "I know it hurts. That's life. If nothing else, it's life. It’s real, and sometimes it f***in’ hurts, but it's sort of all we have."